The Bad BeginningBy Lemony Snicket (HarperCollins, 1999)The first title in "A Series of Unfortunate Events" masterfully combines black humor with a fiendishly funny vocabulary lesson.

26 Fairmount AvenueBy Tomie dePaola (Putnam, 1999)In this sweet memoir of life in the late 1930s, young Tomie quibbles with the differences between the movie Snow White and the "true story," learns the crucial distinction between chocolate and laxatives, and experiences other rites of passage.

The Very Persistent Gappers of FripBy George Saunders, illustrations by Lane Smith (Villard, 2000; McSweeney's, 2006)The sly fable's heroine, aptly named Capable, instantly wins over readers with her stoic, can-do attitude when facing the bristly orange menaces of the title.

The Invention of Hugo CabretBy Brian Selznick(Scholastic, 2007) Move over, Oliver Twist—there's a new light-fingered orphan on the scene. Film stills, photos and original artwork take up more than half of the book's 525 pages and advance the story in cinematic style.